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Eggscetera eggscetera

Those of you who have been with us for sometime know that when we started this blog we had 2 chickens who would contribute around 6 eggs a month between them to our food stock, not exactly that helpful and we were buying eggs every week much to our annoyance.

As you know we found a chicken, lost a chicken and then became proud owners of 3 lovely new birds, Barbara, Sharon and Flo aka Tom, Dick and Harry. Up to 5 birds we were getting about 2 eggs or so a day whilst they all settled in. Pretty much spot on, no need to buy eggs, eggsactly what we needed. A few weeks ago when gardening however we came across a little nest of 7 eggs that our eggscapee chicken Sharon had obviously laid in her favourite hidden spot. Wings clipped, run fence further improved and Sharon contained we waited for a steady stream of an eggstra (sorry we know these are bad) egg a day to come our way.

Then something strange happened, summer arrived and our little chickens, who have either lived in a shed or seen only the few days of summer we have had for the last few years, seem to be thriving in our eggcellent weather! We have gone from 2 eggs a day to 4 or 5, one day Ian remarkably came back with 6, busy day for one of our girls!

How very eggsciting, until of course you realise that whilst 2 big and 1 little persons may use 5 eggs in one day, it is not so easy to use 5 eggs every day, coupled with our eggstremely hot weather and a desire to a) not cook much and b) not eat all that much we have what can only by described as a glut of eggs!

So what to do with them all? Well it is too hot to bake much, we have been making pancakes but our recipe only uses one egg, Ian made some egg jam (basically very soft boiled eggs spread on bread – another culinary disaster) and we have had cakes, but they are being produced faster than we can eat them so….your best most egg-using-up ideas please!

Our chickens are not doing so well this summer 😦 but from previous gluts I can recommend Oeufs soubise from an ancient cookbook. Finely chop a couple of large onions and soften gently in butter, add flour, milk and seasoning to make a sauce. Meanwhile soft boil 2 eggs per person (1 for littlest Pugh) and toast one or 2 slices of bread each. Cool eggs in running water just until you can shell them, once shelled cut in half, lay on toast, pour over sauce soubise and serve. Probably lunch rather than dinner.
Also piperade, a scrambled egg dish from south of France. Soften a chopped onion and red pepper in olive oil, add skinned chopped tomato ( a good use for one gone a bit over-ripe) then stir in beaten eggs to softly scramble. Season to taste. I think this is usually a breakfast dish. Btw the eggs in the bowl are an amazing colour, you obviously feed them well.

Sell some. Put the money in a tin and use it to buy the next bag of feed! It’s what I do with seven chooks and my eggs are totally free… As long as you don’t count the time spent cleaning them out etc!

Freeze them. Whole eggs can be frozen whisked with a pinch of salt. Freeze in twos and threes, or as you usually use them, ready for using over the winter when the hens are on strike.
Pickle them. Dead easy. Hardboiled eggs in (spiced) vinegar. Personally I can’t decide if I really like these or I really don’t, but good if you do like them.
Ice cream using a custard base.
Mayonnaise. I appreciate you may not want to give Lizzie raw eggs yet, but I’ve recently discovered that you can make PROPER HOMEMADE mayo in under a minute with a stick blender. It’s brilliant! NO more shop bought gloop in sandwiches because there’s no time to whisk oil in drop by drop. Make tarragon mayonnaise for Oeufs en Mayonnaise (double egg whammy!) or add herbs or garlic for Aioli. Google 30 second mayo- I recommend the wellpreservedca tutorial. This uses either a whole egg or a yolk. If you just use the yolk you could make…
Meringues or pavlova. Meringues keep well.
Mousse.
Iles Flottant- bit faffy but tasty…
Spinach and egg pizza
Egg and bacon pie, or omit bacon and add fresh mint instead.
Scotch eggs (you can do these in the oven). Use a leek and breadcrumb mix instead of sausage meat for Glamorgan eggs.
Fritters. I’m a child of the seventies- my mum could fritter anything!
Anglesey eggs- baked or poached eggs with leeks. Swap leeks for spinach= Eggs Florentine. Not too much cooking 🙂 Add cheese sauce to hardboiled eggs for egg mornay
Souffle (sweet or savoury)
Shakshuka/Chachouka/Flamenco eggs/Spanish eggs- variations on the piperade suggestion. Usually with whole baked eggs in a spiced tomato and pepper sauce. Flamenco eggs has chorizo. David Lebovitz’ recipe for North African Shakshouka is absolutely delicious. http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2013/02/shakshuka-recipe-eggs/
Tortilla/Egga/Frittata- I’m not a massive omelette fan (too many years as a vegetarian!) but I do like these. Great for packed lunches, make one big one and cut it or make in muffin tins.Think of them as crustless quiche…
Go to work on an egg- eggy bread, boiled egg and soldiers, egg sandwiches, fried egg in a hole cut out of fried bread (the height of sophistication according to my son!), scrambled egg (+/- smoked salmon), bacon and egg, baked egg breakfasts (line muffin tin with bread or ham, crack egg in and bake). If you need convincing that eggs for breakfast are good for you, look at any Paleo diet website 🙂 OK, they wouldn’t have all the bread, but you’ll get the gist!
And I’d second the curd and egg custard suggestions, and freezing pancakes…

Can you tell I’ve had surplus eggs to use up in the past?!

Oh, and great posts apart from all the egg yolks. They’re all white, but after a while you think ‘shell we get back to normal?’ Good, got that ova with…

You can understand why people kept chickens during the war now cant you!…with the official ration being one egg per person per week and a tin of dried eggs monthly (which were apparently “fowl”…sorry couldn’t resist!)…keeping a few chooks would have been an enormous boost to the rations.
Why not see if you can swap some with an allotment holder to get lovely fresh organic veg for free and cut down on your food bill too.

Just stumbled across your blog. What a fab idea for a blog – love it! Fascinating reading too. I’m desperate for chickens in our back hgarden but my husband keeps telling me our garden is too small. This makes me grumpy. Do you need a big garden for chooks, would you say?

Hiya
Your comment seems to have got lost in blogsville – hence the delayed reply. Thank you so much for reading. We can highly recommend chickens – although one of ours keeps getting out hehe. will pop on over and have a read of your blog right now 🙂